JAW'D

JAWS (1975)
dir: Steven Spielberg

The top-grossing movie of all time up to that point and one of the first to make just as much if not more in merchandising than the film itself, spawning at least a dozen imitations. Today here's MAD and Sick's versions, tomorrow we'll look at Cracked and Crazy's versions, then the next two days we'll see how they handled the next two sequels. There were four in all, each with increasingly smaller grosses and audiences, the fourth one not even significant enough to parody.

MAD #180, January 1976
w: Larry Siegel
a: Mort Drucker

Mort Künstler was a pulp and paperback artist, mostly known for civil war paintings, and only did two jobs for MAD under the pen name “Mutz”.

Movie starts with teenagers having a party at night on the beach on Amity Island, somewhere in New England. The movie was famous for its theme whenever a shark started approaching, and as usual MAD was mocking this rock 'n' roll thing they couldn't understand well into the seventies.

A girl decides to go skinny-dipping into the water and is attacked, and a police team led by Sheriff Brody (Roy Scheider) investigates the next day, finding part of the missing body.

An argument among boys in my school was whether or not there was a naked girl in the movie, because back then nobody could just play a tape to prove it. In case you're wondering, there was. Sometimes there were naked people in PG movies in the seventies.

Brody orders the beach closed pending the investigation, but Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) insists it be open since the fourth of July weekend is coming. Brody reluctantly accepts the coroner's report that the girl was killed in a boating accident, but when another child is attacked and killed in broad daylight, everybody realizes something is going on and the town has a meeting about it.

While everyone is discussing what to do about the problem and talking over each other, a sailor named Quint (Robert Shaw) gets their attention, offering to catch the threat, most likely a shark, for $10,000. The town takes it under advisement. Meanwhile, a shark expert named Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) is hired to help with the investigation. Examining the body of the girl who was attacked, they confirm that it was in fact shark bites.

Somebody has caught a tiger shark so it is decided the threat is over and the case is closed, but Brody thinks there's more to the story. At night, they take the tiger shark and cut it open and if there are parts of the victims inside the townspeople will be right, but all they find is garbage. Again, Mayor Vaughn refuses to close the beach because of the tourist cash, but when the weekend rolls around, Brody's son's friend is killed in a crowded ocean and something has to be done. Vaughn gives in and they hire Quint.

Euell Gibbons was a celebrity who espoused only eating from nature. On the beach in the next to last panel is Annette Funicello, who starred in numerous beach movies of the sixties. She is wearing mouse ears because she started out on The Mickey Mouse Club.

They chum the water trying to catch the great white shark they know is in the ocean. It rises up and as Brody sees how big it is, here's where the famous “You're gonna need a bigger boat” line comes. As they're waiting for it to come back, they pass the time comparing scars and drinking and singing sea shanties. (This being a movie about a shark, the sea shanty here has to be the opening lyrics to Mack the Knife) Shaw's gruff personality and Dreyfuss' sensitive demeanor is how they were in real life as well, and their personalities clashed on the set.

Quint decides to take the matter into his own hands but the shark's too strong for him and gets away. Hooper's plan is to lower himself into the water and inject the shark with poison with a spear (not a needle like in this), but drops it, and the shark rams into the cage and smashes it.

The shark manages to leap onto the ship and eat Quint and destroys the boat as it thrashes around. The remaining two manage to finally kill the shark by shoving an oxygen tank into its mouth and shooting it, then swim safely to the shore as the boat sinks.

When the movie came out, sharksploitation was everywhere. There was a fear in real life of shark attacks that persists to this day, despite the likelihood of a shark attack only being slightly higher than being struck by lightning.

A MAD Look at Sharks was in this same issue. Though not parodying Jaws directly, it was printed right after the movie parody and obviously done to cash in on it.

From New Musicals Based on Big Movies in MAD #182, April 1976, written by Frank Jacobs and also drawn by Mort Drucker.

“The Impossible Dream” from Man of LaMancha
Also pictured is New York City mayor Abe Beame. Why he's there when the movie takes place in Massachusetts, I don't know.

“Do-Re-Mi” from The Sound of Music
“On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady
both of which are parodied and will be posted.

Cover of Argentina edition of MAD. Taken from US MAD article Original Covers and One Moment Later.

JAWZ
Sick #107, December 1975
w: Fred Wolfe (Paul Laikin)
a: Jerry Grandenetti

A scene not used in the MAD parody is Brody (not the mayor) being confronted by the child's mother about his death.

Other parts not in the MAD version are vigilantes setting their sights on capturing the shark and a billboard celebrating the holiday defaced to mock the town's negligence.

Charlie the Tuna was an animated fish that was a casting agent and spokesperson for Star-Kist tuna. Totie Fields was a singer known for her girth.

Stay tuned tomorrow to see how Cracked and Crazy covered this.

UPDATE:

cover to Kaputt, German version of Cracked

In Germany, the film is called Der Weissen Hai or The Great White Shark
Cracked did a Jaws/Godfather mash-up I printed earlier, which I assume this issue reprints.